Time change spotlights sleep habits of Central New Yorkers in Excellus study

ThinkstockThat extra hour of sleep you get Sunday with the time change? It's healthy.

Most of us will get an extra hour of sleep Sunday, when the nation "falls back" to standard time. This is great, considering that a recent Excellus BlueCross BlueShield study shows Central New York adults sleep an average of seven hours per night.

Seven or eight is optimal. Over the last 50 years, the length of time Americans devote to sleep has dropped one and a half to two hours per day.

The Excellus study reveals:

* Women report insomnia (difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep or having a short sleep duration) more often than men, mostly due to hormonal changes and higher instances of anxiety and depression.

* Sleep duration fluctuates by age, with young adults, age 18 to 29, sleeping an average 6.9 hours. Middle-aged adults, from age 30 to 64, average 6.7 hours; adults over age 65 average 7.4 hours. They are the only age group getting the recommended six to seven hours per night.

* Exercise helps. Adults who reported no physical activity within the previous 30 days of the survey said they had difficulty sleeping 32 percent of the time, while those who did exercise had difficulty sleeping 21 percent of the time.

Lack of sleep is associated with chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and depression. It's not clear whether sleep disruption leads to these clinical problems, or if the problems disturb sleep, but Excellus says one thing is clear: Several of these conditions are on the rise in Central New York.